


addicted to a certain kind of sadness

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Emo Droid, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Movie: Star Wars: A New Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:35:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24990883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Nothing good ever happens on Tatooine.
Relationships: C-3PO & Darth Vader & R2-D2, R2-D2 & Anakin Skywalker, R2-D2 & Darth Vader
Comments: 30
Kudos: 95
Collections: Turing Fest 2020





	addicted to a certain kind of sadness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ASadHermitStory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASadHermitStory/gifts).



They'd fled the battle, leaving their host ship to perish behind them, and now the _Tantive IV_ hung in the sky over the planet below, incapacitated by Imperial blasts and soon to perish itself. Artoo hurried to Leia's side, giving her a mournful beep. His protocols had been reset several times during his existence, but the overriding function of his program these last many years had been to protect her. Artoo had taken on this duty gladly in the memory of his lost mistress. Only in the deepest depths of recharge did he allow himself to recall the face of his beloved lost master.

"I would stay with you to the end," he told Leia in Binary now, knowing she didn't understand him.

"Recording start," she commanded, and he obeyed, taking a quick hologram of her plaintive message to Obi-Wan before she slid the precious disk into him. Artoo chirruped at her, confirming her last order, and a wish for her safety even as she turned away.

Tatooine. Nothing good ever happened on Tatooine, Artoo muttered to himself, and he rejoined Threepio without looking back.

* * *

Artoo remembered this sad little homestead surrounded by sand. Threepio didn't, and after a lifetime of trying to jog erased memories, Artoo couldn't bear to try here, not as they were tended by a boy who wore Anakin's face.

His circuits startled. He tried not to think about Anakin, not after everything, but his memory cycled over and over without his volition, replaying their missions together, Anakin smiling at Artoo for a job well done, Anakin rushing into danger with Artoo at his side, Anakin's kind hands fixing him.

He had to leave this place, had to find Obi-Wan, had to flee the thick memories clogging his control pathways with reminders of what he'd lost.

* * *

They called this station a Death Star. The Empire lacked both subtlety and taste, in Artoo's opinion, and its central computer was most unpleasant. Threepio always had at him for his manners, but compared to the AI programs loosely connected into a consciousness in the Death Star's massive network, Artoo was a karking diplomat. He sliced through the security protocols, digging up the solution for their tractor beam problem. Obi-Wan hurried off to free them while Artoo turned his own attention back to the grotty Death Star computer. Against all hope, he found a reference to a prisoner, scraped the data, and discovered Leia's location.

A thrill ran through every conduit of his being. The boy who looked like Anakin and carried his family name would save her, must save her.

The computer fed him more data and Artoo sifted through it as Luke and the smuggler argued. Troop complements. Order chains. Commanders.

Darth Vader was aboard this battle station.

Artoo spent several thousand picoseconds in shock, coming back to himself with a friendly thump to his chassis from Threepio. "What's gotten into you?"

Artoo tweeted there was nothing wrong. Threepio didn't remember Anakin. The price of his silence had been his memories, both of their former master and of Anakin's mother. Silence meant Anakin's children would grow up in safety, the boy far away from them, the girl under their care. Neither child could ever know their father was the Emperor's dark-visaged menace who stalked the galaxy at his master's whim and crushed freedom under the Empire's dread boot in his name, or that Darth Vader had once been the finest human Artoo had ever known.

Artoo was awash in memories again and these refused to leave him.

* * *

Another terminal, another neat slice into the network. Artoo couldn't figure out where Leia, Luke, and Obi-Wan had gotten themselves to, nor their acerbic pilot and his hirsute copilot. As he searched, he reminded Threepio of the comlink while he downloaded every scrap of data he could about the commanders of this station.

No, he might lie to protect a mission but he dared not lie to himself. He was researching everything he could about Vader.

"Master," he thought, letting the shameful sentiment out in a quiet whistle even Threepio didn't hear and wouldn't have understood. Artoo shouldn't have spent the energy. There were garbage mashers to shut down, and internal maps to check for the sake of his own escape, and Anakin was no longer his master. Anakin was gone. Only Vader remained. Artoo kept searching, his processor caught in a feedback loop. Yes, that must be it.

Vader's records were scanty. Even the Empire didn't seem to know too much about him, or else they chose not to make much information available. Only his medical records were extensive. Artoo lingered over these for nearly a full indulgent second: massive wounds and amputations, burn scars covering much of the remaining flesh, tortured lungs needing constant mechanical help for the most basic of organic function. Vader was half machine now, and Artoo knew most organics would consider that an abomination, to be made like a droid. Anakin Skywalker would have considered it an honor.

They hurried to the hangar, but the ship they'd arrived in was well guarded. Artoo, redolent with fresh knowledge and with his precious cargo tucked inside himself, felt his hopes fading.

A familiar noise came to his audio receptors, one he hadn't heard in two decades. Lightsabers clashed nearby. The stormtroopers guarding the ship walked away to view the novelty. Threepio said, "Come on, Artoo. We're going."

From one side of the hangar, he heard the deep respiration of Vader's mechanical suit, and he heard the flashing sabers. Part of him longed to turn and go back, to roll up to Vader and whistle and chirp and rage at him for breaking their bond and destroying one of the most important friendships in Artoo's life. He wanted to storm at the man his beloved master had become, shriek at him until he saw reason. But Leia was boarding the ship, and Luke was headed that same way, and Artoo's role was to protect them no matter the cost.

He boarded the ship without looking back.

* * *

X-Wings were falling around them, cut down by Imperial lasers. Artoo hadn't expected to die atomized in the astromech socket of a spacecraft in another new war, but he calculated the odds in favor of his survival were dwindling by the moment. He would serve Luke as well as he had served Anakin, even if their time together measured in minutes.

Three TIES approached them. The leader was in a TIE Advanced, and as Artoo rotated his dome to see, he noted with a dull sorrow that the pilot's familiar shiny black armor was clear to his visual receptors.

"I'm not sorry I left you there," he chirruped, cutting contact with Luke in the cockpit as he did. "I'm sorry it came to that point. I'm sorry this is how things turned out. I'm sorry we couldn't save you from yourself."

Vader couldn't hear him, and if he could, Artoo wasn't sure he would care. He ached deep inside his chassis for times long past that could never return.

"I miss you," he said, and the TIE Advanced blasted him as he screamed.


End file.
